The lower palm can be held in several variations, the main point is that the hands are held lower, closer to the waist or abdomen area. It is not as developmental for the arms or upper body as the animal postures (typically more of a middle position), or the upper palm. If you make a effort to focus on the legs it can be quite beneficial for the lower body development.
Since standing with the arms held at the waist is less demanding than say holding the arms above the head I feel, standing the lower palm as an isometric strengthening posture to not as beneficial as standing the upper palm or other animal postures. You simply don’t get the same development for your time expenditure.
Turning the lower palm posture is, in my opinion, a better way to utilize this method. I would also emphasize it’s use to be more of an augmentation to your training, and should not be the main focus of study. Again more development can be gained in a shorter time frame while standing and turning more strenuous postures. The effort you put out is proportional to the development gained.
I suggest the most optimal way to train the lower palm would be to tack on a extra 10-15 mins of circle turning at the end of your normal routine. Use it as a cool down of sorts, or with the arms lower you could focus more on the legs and really squat down, changing this to a burn out for the legs at the end of your regular turning routine.
The short clip attached demonstrates a method to change direction while turning the lower palm. It is quite simple and should be easy enough for everyone to understand at a basic level after a couple of runs through it. Do not underestimate its value and importance however. This simple change contains many possible variations.
YSB is a living art, keep it alive. Bagua is the art of change, and remember it’s all meant for fighting. On this point, I demonstrated a simple three move direction change. When you take it apart for use here are several points to consider: what is the support hand doing? How does the main hand transition to a supporting role? This change has you alternate from left to right hands, what happens if you only use one hand repeatedly?
Here I introduce the basic elements of the snake system. I will be putting together some of my favorite snake combos in the coming weeks. I’ll try to also upload some run throughs of the applications as I am able.
Here I discuss using the rear hand to directly attack and open the opponent as opposed to the first two methods that address a more responsive role, responding to the opponent by rushing or withdrawing. Here we will initiate an attack in order to cause and utilize the response. Soft and leaning strikes are introduced as well as the method of turning the back.
In this clip I explain how the withdrawing attack method specializes in stepping and how that can be utilized based on the forms and direction changes of the bear system. Drilling these short combos can be beneficial to those new to the art as a way to get familiar with the different systems and strategies. Drilling these combos can also benefit more seasoned practitioners by giving them an idea of how to apply the art in real life situations.
Yin style Bagua is first a combative art. Unlike many traditional arts these days we study strictly for combative use. YSB contains no watered down flamboyance as is found in many other traditional arts in current times. Training of Yin style Bagua is strictly for self defense and is taught as it has been handed down to us from the practitioners who came before us.
Dong Hai Chuan passed down the art of Bagua to Yin Fu, his greatest and longest studied student, to whom this branch of Bagua is named for. Yin Style Bagua differs from other styles of Bagua in many ways. Yin Fu passed his art on to Men Baozhen, who in turn taught Xie Peiqi. Dr Xie trained He Jinbao fully in the combative aspects of this art. All these practitioners hailed from Beijing, where He Jinbao resides to this day. He Jinbao teaches workshop across the United States and Europe annually. There are many study groups in the States that train regularly and come together to attend these workshops throughout the years. ...
Tomorrow our group will be running the interlocking shooting form, from 2024, as well as introducing the new form Matt Bild just uploaded to the Facebook group page, the turning the back shooting form. Should be a blast. Finally have a temperate day here on the east coast for a change.
Slight departure from the snake content but this is what the group studied yesterday. The following post is from the group Facebook page:
Training Lion system yesterday in our study group. Focusing on the different uses of the waist to generate force in the strikes. Moving with the waist, moving against the waist, and expanding the waist.
-The rising sweeping strike was used to emphasize the waist moving with the strike.
-The inward sweeping strike was utilized to place emphasis on the method of the waist moving against the strike.
-And lastly the upright chopping strike was used to emphasize more of a dropping or expanding usage of the waist.
First we started with a stationary strike drilling method to work on the waist and the arm/strike coordination. We then added in a step, using the triangle stepping in place or an advancing-withdrawing type of one step drilling method.
This allowed us to add in hand-foot harmony to the already used hand-eyes and waist-strike coordination. Thus turning...
